Showtime

For those who don’t have Showtime and are still interested in seeing Shamrock vs Cung Le this Saturday night, Sho.com will be streaming the fight live at approximately 10:15 PM ET using the Showtime Cage Cam.

Diaz, Cesar Gracie Plan Legal Action Against CSAC

One day after the California State Athletic Commission surprisingly ruled that Nick Diaz will not be permitted to fight at this weekend’s Elite Xtreme Combat and Strikeforce co-promoted “Shamrock vs Cung Le” show, because he owns a medical marijuana card, Diaz and manager Cesar Gracie are now reportedly planning to take legal action.

Gracie told MMA Weekly that he plans to take the matter to court after CSAC Executive Director Armando Garcia stated that Diaz’s participation was denied because of late filing of medical papers.

“That’s absolutely not true,” Gracie said in the report. “Because if he didn’t turn his medicals in, how did Garcia know Nick has a mariijuana card? He found out when the medicals were turned in. For some reason, Armando’s finding every excuse in the book to not let this guy fight. That’s exactly why we’re going to move forward with legal action after this. We’re going to go ahead and get our lawyers and we’re going to sit down and go forward with the proceedings. This is just discrimination, you can’t do that.”

Spratt-Von Flue Signed for April 26

Pete Spratt and Jason Von Flue, both veterans of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, will collide in a welterweight bout that will headline the Ultimate Warrior Challenge’s upcoming show on April 26th at George Mason University’s Patriot Center in Washington D.C.

Spratt is coming off of a controversial loss to Ryan Ford in February while Von Flue has dropped his last three fights. Notable fighters also on the card include Thomas Schulte, Carlo Prater, Aaron Riley, Marcelo Brito, and Zach Light.

Two Lightweights Fights Added to Sengoku II

A pair of lightweights bout have been added to World Victory Road’s next Sengoku show on May 18th: Satoru Kitaoka vs Ian James Schaffa and Eiji Mitsuoka vs Kwang Hee Lee.

Roger Gracie, Yuki Sasaki, and Yoshihiro Nakao, who was originally reported as facing Mirko Cro Cop at the recent DREAM event, are all expected to be in action. Even though his name was not mentioned, former UFC heavyweight champion Kevin Randleman has stated that he will be fighting at the show as well.

Evangelista, Sims, and Lennox In; Black Out

MMA Mania is reporting that Marlon Sims and Billy Evangelista will clash in a lightweight preliminary bout at tomorrow’s Elite Xtreme Combat and Strikeforce co-promoted “Shamrock vs Cung Le” show. However neither Strikeforce, EliteXC, or ProElite have made any sort of announcement of the fight at this hour.

It seems that Jason Black will not be fighting in the IFL after all just yet. Five Ounces of Pain reports through Nick Lembo, legal counsel for the New Jersey Athletic Control Board, that Black will not be on the card for undisclosed reasons. He will reportedly be replaced by Jesse Lennox.

Longtime mixed martial arts veteran Thomas Denny will collide with talented Muay Thai champion Malaipet Sitprapom in the main event of the next edition of ShoXC: Elite Challenger Series later tonight.

The event will take place at the Chumash Casino in Santa Ynez, California and will air live on Showtime starting at 11 PM ET.

Malaipet has won three of out of his four professional bouts, including his last two. He made his EliteXC debut in October, winning a unanimous decision over Kaleo Kwan. The Team Diamond founder holds an unheard of 136-26 record in Muay Thai.

“I think Thomas Denny has a lot of skill in the ground, but I’m not scared,” Sitprapom said during yesterday’s weigh-ins. “If something happens, it happens. I have been working on my ground work, but I am interested in defending submissions, not trying to apply them. If I get taken to the ground, I will try and take the fight back to standing up.”

Denny, who has fought the majority of his career inside the confines of King of the Cage, was knocked out by Joe Camacho back in January. This fight will be the second of a three-fight deal Denny currently has with EliteXC.

“I plan to punch him on his face, put him on his head and submit him,” Denny said. “I think a lot of people give Malaipet too much respect for his Muay Thai game. You need to attack him. His conditioning is questionable, so I will to push him hard. I need to keep coming forward and keep punishing him with punches.”

EliteXC through Sam Caplan has announced the initial fighters to the upcoming February 16th card in Miami, FL. The long awaited Kimbo Slice vs Tank Abbott much will be featured in the main event.

ProElite.com (SamCaplan.ProElite.com) has learned that the long-awaited heavyweight clash between Internet street fighting legend Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and former UFC staple Tank Abbott is scheduled to be the main event of EliteXC’s next show on Saturday, February 16.

The show, scheduled to air on Showtime at 10:00 p.m. ET, is slated to emanate from Miami, Florida. A venue has not been officially announced but the University of Miami has been rumored as a location.

In addition to Slice vs. Abbott, a middleweight matchup between Australian Kyle Noke and former UFC fighter Scott Smith is also scheduled. Antonio Silva and James “Colossus” Thompson are slated to compete on the card as well, in separate bouts.

Abbott and Slice had been scheduled to fight each other on October 12 in Atlantic City, NJ for the Cage Fury Fighting Championships promotion. However, the promotion ran into financial difficulties and was forced to cancel the card. The cancellation allowed Slice to become a free agent, and he signed a lucrative contract with EliteXC soon after.

In addition, Sam is reporting that Gina Carano will also be featured on that show.

In addition to confirming a reported main event between Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and Tank Abbott, EliteXC announced the addition of female fighter Gina Carano to the card.

Carano last fought on Sept. 15 in Honolulu, Hawaii, recording a first-round submission over Tonya Evinger. Carano’s opponent for Feb. 16 has not been announced.

A prime Tank Abbott would make for a wild brawl with Kimbo Slice. Unfortunately, Tank is 10 years past his prime at 42 years of age, having lost 7 of his last 8 fights in 10 years. Even the inexperienced Kimbo should have no trouble putting Tank to sleep. But there is always that chance that Tank lands one of those famous wild punches of his and hurts the granite jawed Slice. At least Abbott will put up a much better showing than what Bo Cantrell offered in Kimbos’ MMA debut.

As for Gina, the inclusion of her on this card should help dispel some of the rumors of a dispute between her and EliteXC. With her spot on the cast of American Gladistors, there were some whispers that EliteXC and Gina were in disagreement over when she would fight next and for how much financially.

The America Bank Center Arena in Corpus Christi, Texas, will rock like it never has before when Gary Shaw Productions, LLC, presents “EliteXC: Renegade’’ on Saturday, Nov. 10, on Showtime (10 p.m. ET/PT, delayed on the west coast).

An excellent main event will feature an EliteXC world title fight in a brand new weight class – 160 pounds—between talented, crowd-pleasing Nick Diaz and exciting, hard-hitting KJ Noons.

In other televised bouts, Kimbo will make his EliteXC debut against Bo Cantrell and world-ranked welterweight Jake Shields will face Mike Pyle. A fifth televised fight will be announced in the near future.

Some notes from yesterday’s M-1 Global press conference which took place in New York City…

- Sibling Sports LLC is the name of the undisclosed American entertainment company that purchased M-1. The company is formed by Sibling Theatricals Inc and Garlin Holdings Limited. Mitchell Maxwell will serve as President of Sibling Sports while Monte Cox will serve as President and CEO of M-1 Global.

- Fedor Emelianenko’s contract is a two-year, six-fight, multi-million dollar deal. He has a clause in the contract that will allow him to fight in other organizations. If the UFC is able to bring Randy Couture back and would like to set up a mega-fight between him and Fedor, M-1 will send him over and also pay Couture and the winner of the fight an extra $1 million.

- M-1 Global is planning their first show to take place in the United States in February. They would also like to host shows in Russia, Korea, Japan, and the Netherlands as well. At least three of the promotion’s events next year will take place outside of the United States. The first show in Japan will most likely take place next summer.

- The company is still looking for a television deal. HBO, Showtime, and HDNet are said to all be among the interested parties.

- The new stable of fighters recently signed with the promotion will be revealed within the next 7-10 days.

- Fedor’s next opponent has not yet been named. Josh Barnett and Mark Hunt are said to be the favorites.

- M-1 Global will continue to use a rule set similar to the set that PRIDE used before it’s collapse. The promotion would like to adopt a set of rules that could be used anywhere in the future however.

- According to Fedor, the UFC apparently turned down an offer from PRIDE to have Fedor fight Tim Sylvia when he was the UFC Heavyweight Champion for unknown reasons. Fedor also added that a similar offer was made to match up Chuck Liddell and Wanderlei Silva when they were champions as well.

- The UFC made a contract offer to Aleksander Emelianenko but the deal was apparently much lower than what Aleksander is worth according to his brother.

The IFL held a conference call earlier today to announce that the first round of the IFL Grand Prix will be televised live on broadcast television as well to reveal the implementation of the inaugural IFL Draft. IFL President Kurt Otto was featured on the call.

Otto began the call by discussing details of the first round of the IFL Grand Prix that will be televised live on November 3rd at 8 PM EST on MyNetworkTV. The show will be one hour long and will show a few of the fights that will be taking place that night. Matchups between lightweights Chris Horodecki and Bart Palaszewski as well as heavyweights Ben Rothwell and Roy Nelson are expected to be televised. Otto said that the final round of the Grand Prix that is scheduled to take place on December 29th may also be possibly televised live as well.

Otto also announced that light heavyweight Mike Ciesnolevicz has been forced to pull out of the Grand Prix after suffering a broken nose in his recent fight against Andre Gusmao at the IFL Championship. Replacing Ciesnolevicz will be Gusmao himself. Gusmao will take on top seeded Vladimir Matyushenko while Mike Whitehead will face off against Alex Schoenauer in the first round.

The IFL will conduct it’s first ever draft during the month of October. The draft will consist of three separate tryout sessions set to take place in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago on October 13th, October 20th, and October 27th respectively. Fighters looking to try out must be at least 18 years of age and must have one professional MMA fight under their belt.

Otto discussed newly named President and COO Jay Larkin and the impact that he will have on the company coming over from Showtime.

Other things of note that Otto discussed were:

- The fact that Otto prefers the new Saturday night time slot compared to Monday nights. He said that the IFL is instead featured in a prime time TV slot and that they don’t have to compete with Monday Night Football any longer.

- Otto stated that some of the teams will be relocating to new cities or countries for next season. He also said that there will be a few coaching changes as well. When asked if he already found a replacement for departing Los Angeles head coach Shawn Tompkins, Otto said “maybe”.